


Hit the Ground Running

by coricomile



Category: iCarly
Genre: Age Difference, Consequences, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 14:29:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/724348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coricomile/pseuds/coricomile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And you may ask yourself am I right? Am I wrong? And you may tell yourself my god… What have I done?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hit the Ground Running

There was a time when you didn’t live in the artsy little apartment with your little sister. You lived with your father and, before Carly was born, your mother in a small, quiet townhouse in Yakama. You had a cat. Your best friend lived three blocks away. You wanted to be a fireman. Then, you wanted to be a jockey. When Carly was born, you realized you were afraid of fire, and were already too tall to be fast.

When your father left for the Navy, you were eighteen. Carly was five. Your father set you up in a nice, pretty apartment with a bank account that was promised not to run out. You were going to raise a kid. Oh, god help you.

There was a woman that lived across the hall. Mrs. Benson. She had a son, Fredward, the same age as Carly and was more than willing to help. You still owe her more than you could ever give her back.

As the years passed, Carly and Freddie spent their afternoons together, switching apartments back and forth. They went to the same kindergarten and started at the same elementary school. A few years later, Carly brought home a young, mouthy girl named Sam. Her relationship with Freddie was never the same.

You had started sculpting. You found a sort of peace in it. It let you sort out the thoughts you didn’t want to think about. You got rid of the words one by one. It was calming. And Carly seemed to love it. She could sit for hours and watch, her head tilted off to the side, just listening to the words you weren’t saying.

Your father came to visit every so often, checking in on you. He never stayed long. You don’t know if you would have wanted it differently. 

Freddie was helplessly in love with you dear little sister, and who could blame him? The girl was special. You watched as he chased her, over an over again, just to go back home with the _no_ stamped across his heart once again. You felt bad for him. He was a good kid. 

One summer, you got the idea to go to law school. Carly laughed, which hurt a lot more than you wanted to tell her. You went for three days. School wasn’t the place for you. You already knew that. But, maybe, you were getting tired of not knowing what you were meant to be. What you were supposed to do with yourself. 

When Carly was thirteen, she started a webshow with Sam and Freddie. You were happy for her. She loved it. Sam, that obnoxious little beast, was her co-host. Freddie was her producer. You were snack-man. 

Freddie, who already spent a lot of his time at your apartment, began to stay more and more, even when Carly was out. You knew what was happening, and it freaked you out. Freddie was… attaching. He was looking to you to be his father figure. His male mentor and guide. You… were afraid. How were you supposed to teach him to be a man when you hadn’t been taught? 

It didn’t seem to matter to him, though. He spent almost as much time with you as he spent with Carly, watching you sculpt, tagging along to fence, cutting the occasional last period to go to a baseball game with you. It became less awkward as time went by. It was nice, actually. He was a fun kid to be around. You wondered what kept Carly from dating him.

On your twenty-eighth birthday, Carly threw a birthday party for you. It made you a bit sad to see that all the people in your life were fifteen. Carly and Sam had bought you a Pearpod and downloaded your favorite songs and videos onto it. Later, after the girls had gone elsewhere, Freddie gave you a small, hand painted plaster sculpture. It was of a boy and a man, sitting together on a log. The boy was holding a tiny heart. The man was looking in the other direction. Freddie didn’t wait long enough for you to respond to the gift. You still have the sculpture. It sits on your dresser, just like it did then.

For a few days after he gave you the gift, Freddie was inseparable from the girls. Finally, after the taping of iCarly, you managed to corner him. He wouldn’t look you in the eye. You opened your arms and, slowly, he walked into them. You held him, and he cried. He cried, and your shoulder was damp from the tears, and your heart was breaking because you didn’t know what to do, but you loved him and wanted the pain to go away. You loved him.

A few months passed, and things seemed to be back to normal. You were half-asleep on the couch when Freddie walked in. You patted the spot on the couch next to you. His cheeks were red, and you assumed it was from the cold. He smiled a little when you laid the blanket you’d been using over his lap. Slowly, looking at the ground, he asked you if you would make a sculpture of him. You agreed without thinking too much about it. 

Days later, when you set up your clay and water in your room, Freddie walked in, barefoot and shirtless. And, for the first time in years, you stopped to really look at him. He was sixteen, now, and had grown so much since he had been the cubby-cheeked five-year-old you first met.

He stood as tall as your shoulder, now, his baby fat gone from his face. His arms were long and had the marks of lifting heavy camera equipment for a long period of time. He was lean, mostly from not eating the meals his mother made, and his hair was long enough to fall into his eyes. His hands looked too big for his thin wrists.

Quietly, he crawled onto your bed and positioned himself. He laid on his side, one leg and one arm crooked, his head resting on his palm. His other hand rested on the mattress. Just as quietly, you picked up your first ball of clay and began to build the shape of his torso. For a moment, you wished you had enough to make it life-sized. 

For long hours you worked, shaping the gentle curves and angles of his body. His eyes were fluttering open and shut, his head sinking a little as he fought off sleep. You had already finished the face and were refining the body, working delicately on the soft curve of the hip. And, even though you willed them to, the thoughts you were trying to remove yourself of were refusing to leave. Freddie was asleep by time the sculpture was finished.

Carly found the sculpture two weeks later. You saw the questions in her face. Before you could talk to her, she had left. You never spoke of it. 

Days passed. Weeks. Carly and Sam ran around the apartment together, chatting in the corners about boys you didn’t know. Freddie sat off to the side more often than not, close enough for you to touch, but farther away than you could reach. Every time he looked at you, you felt Carly watching, too. You didn’t know which bothered you more.

Carly was invited to the prom by some boy with blonde hair and the beginnings of a goatee. You were happy to see her smile, sad to know that you no longer could be helpful to her. She smiled and waved and held her new toy of choice’s hand and walked out the door.

You were sitting on the floor when Freddie walked in. He sat next to you, quietly, just like always, and watched you meticulously glue tiny sequins onto a cardboard cutout. His hands, almost the same size as yours, were warm when they wrapped around your wrists. You knew what was coming. You knew and you could have stopped it, but one man is only so strong. If only you were stronger. He took the cutout from you, set it on the ground. Slowly, the fear in his eyes breaking you bit by bit, he touched his fingertips to yours. 

And how different your hands were from his. How soft and young he was. How terrified you were when he crawled to you, when his hand curled into your hair, when he slowly, slowly, slowly touched his tender young lips to yours. You wrapped your arms around him, pulled him to your chest like you had so many months ago, and kissed him back. 

He wrapped his fingers around your wrist once more and pressed your hand to his chest. His heartbeat thumped against your palm in a steadily increasing pace, and your own began to race along with it. You felt the break in him, felt the things he’d been holding back for however long. Freddie pressed against you, toppling you backwards. His weight rested on your stomach and chest, his hands on either side of your head.

This was no longer the child you had watched for years on end. This was no longer the playmate of your little sister, the sweet little boy that fenced with you when he felt lonely. No, this boy was something different. And as his fingers slid under your shirt, you knew it could never go back.

It was you, you stupid, weak man, that brought the both of you to your feet. You who led the way to the bedroom, your eager hands pulling his shirt over his head. It was Freddie who closed the door behind you. Freddie who pushed you back onto the bed. Freddie who put your palm to his warm, thin stomach. 

And, oh, he was beautiful in his youth. Soft and smooth and tender. How new this was to you both. How awkward his fingers were on your skin, how different he was from the women you’d been with. Freddie’s skin smelled like fresh cotton and cinnamon. His hair was soft, curling around his temples. How eager he was. How beautiful.

After, Freddie clutched to you, his warm, sticky skin flush against yours. He kissed you and told you he loved you so much it hurt. He asked you to hold him. To not let go. You told him you would hold on until the world ended.

Oh, how quickly the world ended.

For weeks, the two of you met at night sharing secrets, sharing ideas, sharing who you were. Freddie, young as he was, was the most interesting person you knew. Oh, how you loved him. Had always loved him. He brought a happiness to you that you hadn’t known for a long, long time. 

You continued on as normal. Freddy did iCarly with Carly and Sam. You continued to be chauffer and chaperone, taking them to the Groovy Smoothie after each show. And, if Freddie always made sure to sit next to you, neither girl seemed to notice. And, if the two of you went out more often to do ‘boy stuff’, no one seemed to care. It was a beautiful thing.

One night, Carly walked in just as Freddie leaned in to kiss you. Both of you froze, Freddie’s cheeks turning red. Carly’s mouth hung open, her hand flying to her chest. She stepped backwards and closed the door. You could hear her breathing on the other side. There was terror in Freddie’s eyes. Your heart was in your throat.

When you heard Carly’s footsteps fade away, you opened your bedroom door and led Freddie’s out. He told you he loved you. You wanted to kiss him until the fear went away. He pressed his soft, chapped lips to your cheek. Oh, how your chest hurt. 

The next morning, Carly came to talk to you. You told her not to. She told you that you could be in a lot of trouble. You told her you knew. God, how you knew. How often you’d thought about what could happen if you were caught with him. How it haunted your dreams. 

Freddie came to you that night. He locked your door, kissed you. Led you to bed where he touched you for hours. Where you touched him back. You loved him, and you worshiped the soft, tender skin of his palms, his soft, graceful neck. You loved him, and he loved you back. What a beautiful thing, this love. How gentle you were when you loved him, how lovely his face as he relaxed into you. He slept with you that night, in several senses of the word. You woke with his arms around you, his cheek pressed to your chest. It was the most wonderful moment in your life. You still treasure it to this day. 

Then, the knock on the door. The ominous echo that filled the room. You shook Freddie’s shoulder gently. When he looked up at you, his eyes bleared with sleep, you knew that you could never love another person as much as you loved this boy. The knock sounded again. Freddie kissed you, soft and sweet and tender. How your heart broke. You both dressed, and the knock sounded again and again, more furious each time. Slowly, the tears already in his eyes, Freddie opened the door.

His mother stood on the other side, Carly, her head hung in shame, behind her. Freddie yelled as his mother grabbed his arm. As she tried to drag him away. He pulled his arm from her grasp, fought against her. He turned his eyes to Carly. Whispered to her. Asked her how she could be so heartless. You saw the tears falling down her face. 

And Mrs. Benson. She called you vile, hateful things. How old she looked. How betrayed. She told you that she had already called the police. Freddie screamed at her. He ranted, he cried himself hoarse. You… had already accepted that this was going to happen. He flung himself into your arms, and you held him. You cradled his head in your palm, wrapped your arm around his back.

He cried. He sobbed. You cried with him, silently, tears falling into his hair. A knock on the outside door. The turn of the handle. Men in uniforms, come to take you away. They pulled Freddie from you, even as he yelled against it. Even as he yelled that he loved you, that it had been his choice. As they locked the handcuffs around your wrists, you told him you loved him, too. That you always would. 

You stayed in jail for thirty days. Were told you would need to file paperwork for the rest of your life every time you moved. Carly was forced to move back to Yakama with your grandfather. Freddie’s mother put a restraining order on you. They moved across the city. Your apartment, when you went back to it, was very quiet. Was very empty.

And it has been, for what seems like forever. You still have your little figure of Freddie, sculpted not that long after his sixteenth birthday. Still have the little sculpture he had painstakingly made for you. And, every few weeks, you receive a package in the mail, Carly’s name on the return address, written in Freddie’s handwriting.

He sends you tapes. Oh, how you live for those tapes. How you love seeing his bright face appear on the screen, how you love listening to his voice as he rambles on about everyday life. How you smile at the little, dirty thing he puts at the ends. And you miss him. You miss him more than you could have ever believed.

And it terrifies you that he may stop sending the tapes. That he may stop thinking of you. May stop loving you. How terribly long two years is. How impossible it seems that you can’t see him until his eighteenth birthday. And you ask yourself, time and again, if you did the right thing. If you did the wrong thing. Oh, what did you do, you stupid, stupid man?


End file.
